I really like what Tina Brown is doing at The Daily Beast. There's no hint of the crowd at the Beast -- it's all Tina's sensibility, her wit and judgment. So I'm thrilled to now be contributing to the new website. My first piece, published today, is a defense of (sleazy) lobbyists -- surely the loneliest and most misunderstood people in America today.

Judging from the comments about In Defense of Sleazy Lobbyists, it seems like not everyone agrees with my defense of K Street. But then, again, most people disagreed with my defense of professional journalists, and it's only now -- as more and more people recognize news is dying -- that my position is becoming more mainstream.

So spare a thought for the lonely lobbyists of K Street. They are the intermediaries par excellence of our representative democracy and thus have become symbolic victims of the radical democratizers, with Detroit CEO's and Wall Street investors, the most hated people in America. Sleazy lobbyists might not be ideal, but disintermediating them doesn't solve the problem of how to establish a more responsible and responsive democratic system.